Healthcare providers and medical information websites have been criticised by the consumer watchdog for routinely breaching the privacy of people using their services online. The Consumentenbond said the sites were placing cookies on their web pages that allowed third-party sites, such as Google, to track people’s internet use without their consent. Some sites failed to carry ‘cookie warning’ pages, which are required by law and allow users to opt out of accepting cookies, but even those that did had often already placed the cookie on the user’s computer before giving them the choice.